Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro

[Jarno Elonen <elonen@iki.fi>]

We are having a small debate about wheter a user has freedom to modify code of 
free software when it concerns where a long version of author & sponsor list 
is displayed. It has also been speculated that GPL v3 will have a say on 
this. Could elaborate what will be in it?

(The following message was first sent to RMS directly, but thankfully his old 
address bounced. There probably are others of you in the GNU project who can 
answer this as well.)

....

> (Hans Reiser wrote:)
> I look forward to the release of GPL V3 which will hopefully cover fair
> crediting of code as well as documentation, and stem this rising tide of
> plagiarism and political bowlderization by distros.

I think nobody here has anything against keeping all the credits in 
documentation or trying to take the credit for ReiserFS tools.
The problem now seems to be that:

  if the program outputs a long credits & thanks list in a very uncomfortable
  place such as startup, can a free software license really *prohibit
  modifying the code* so that the listing is moved behind a switch,
  "about" menu item or such?

IMHO, it is reasonable to demand that all credits must be "easily accessible" 
in derived works but not that a long list appears *before the program does 
anything useful* - it both hinders the usability of the program and severely 
restricts the freedom to modify the code.

Hans: Would you consider it a breach of your license if your program is 
modified so that the long credits list is shown in some other place than in 
the original works? Must graphical frontends also parse the output and popup 
a message box or something containing the credits OR would you be happy if 
they are listed in the frontend's "About" box?

RMS: Will GPL v3 take a new stance on this issue as has been speculated?

- Jarno